Fulmer’s Legacy at Tennessee

[beachvol23]

Majors is the 2nd best coach we've had here.
Majors took over a floundering program, and we've seen how hard it is to stop that over the last 13 years. In less than 10 years Majors had snapped Bama's win streak, won the SEC and finished in the top 5.

It's selling Majors way short to downplay his rebuild of the program. It was even harder to rebuild back then because good programs could stockpile more talent because they could give out more scholarships. Take the 20 traditional best teams in the country and add 10 to 20 more players to their roster and look at the talent pool that's left over.

Majors also had to deal with a stacked Clemson that was cheating like heck as he rebuilt and a national championship level Georgia. Fulmer got to coach in the Clemson down era. We struggle and they rise. Georgia was varying degrees of garbage when Fulmer was at his peak. Florida hired Clemson's cheating coach and they were cheating too at the time and got very good. Plus Majors had Bear Bryant at Alabama still. Alabama during Fulmer's peak was a probation ridden mess and at the lowest points in school history.

Fulmer won a lot early on, and it was because Majors had UT humming and producing NFL talent in large part. Plus Majors was good at hiring quality assistants. Fulmer didn't just inherit a ton of talent, from a team that had been to major bowls and won multiple SEC titles recently, he inherited a staff of good coaches.

At the end if their careers both Majors and Fulmer had a national title. Majors rebuilt 3 programs, won more games, got more jobs, and won more conference championships than Fulmer. He hired better assistants and has a much better coaching tree. By any metric Johnny Majors was a better coach than Fulmer.

Perfectly stated!!! Amen!!!

 

[allen phillips]

Really don't think anybody that knows very much about the details considers the way Majors was removed to be destroying Tennessee football.

I think what you are saying is that Majors deserved what he got and I believe maybe he did.

 

[Mccage]

IPruitt's interview ... " How y'all do it at Bama"

 

[TartanTurff]

Fulmer will be remembered as the only person forced to leave the university in a disgraceful removal not once but twice, leaving the football program in the ditch both times he was canned. Let us hope there is not a third time, but the university has not been known for top flight hires since Ed Boling and Jack Reese were at the helm.

Fulmer could have been as reveered at Tennessee as Spurrier is at Florida, Bowden at Florida State, Dooley at Georgia, McKay at USC, Parsegan at Notre Dame, but his love of self, spun and masked as love of university got the best of him and the program and its fans paid the price, not once but twice.

 

[thistime]

Fulmer will be remembered as the only person forced to leave the university in a disgraceful removal not once but twice, leaving the football program in the ditch both times he was canned. Let us hope there is not a third time, but the university has not been known for top flight hires since Ed Boling and Jack Reese were at the helm.

Fulmer could have been as reveered at Tennessee as Spurrier is at Florida, Bowden at Florida State, Dooley at Georgia, McKay at USC, Parsegan at Notre Dame, but his love of self, spun and masked as love of university got the best of him and the program and its fans paid the price, not once but twice.

That's harsh but there is a lot of truth to it. I spoke with him at a golf tournament for a few minutes and we talked about his leaving, not in detail by any means, but the one thing I got from the conversation is this: He is a VFL, He thought He could fix it and to his fault He thought He was the only one that could. As far as the other stuff, with Pruitt, all he said was some people did some things they didn't need too.

 

[Race City Vol]

His ending as AD isn’t pretty for sure. Majors pushed himself out and to claim otherwise is BS. I don’t think he destroyed Tenn football in 2008 either. We played for the SEC championship in 2007. No one has come close to his success even in the 2000’s sine and that’s with him being away from the program for 9 years. Can’t blame Kiffin, Dooley and Jones on him. If you want to blame Pruitt on him fine but you need to consider the sh@@ show he inherited.

All true, he did a lot of good things as coach. And yes, Majors and his decision making were solely responsible for his removal.

 

[hog88]

Destroyed

 

[OrangeBeachVol]

Fulmer was allowed to gracefully step down from the AD job instead of getting caught up in the Pruitt mess. He probably deserved that but you still have to wonder if he knew what was going on. I had heard from a couple of people that he brought in Tee to be his inside eyes and ears but doesn't appear that Tee informed him of what was going on so he may very well be innocent of the scandal. But...............................

 

[sonofUT62]

Majors is the 2nd best coach we've had here.
Majors took over a floundering program, and we've seen how hard it is to stop that over the last 13 years. In less than 10 years Majors had snapped Bama's win streak, won the SEC and finished in the top 5.

It's selling Majors way short to downplay his rebuild of the program. It was even harder to rebuild back then because good programs could stockpile more talent because they could give out more scholarships. Take the 20 traditional best teams in the country and add 10 to 20 more players to their roster and look at the talent pool that's left over.

Majors also had to deal with a stacked Clemson that was cheating like heck as he rebuilt and a national championship level Georgia. Fulmer got to coach in the Clemson down era. We struggle and they rise. Georgia was varying degrees of garbage when Fulmer was at his peak. Florida hired Clemson's cheating coach and they were cheating too at the time and got very good. Plus Majors had Bear Bryant at Alabama still. Alabama during Fulmer's peak was a probation ridden mess and at the lowest points in school history.

Fulmer won a lot early on, and it was because Majors had UT humming and producing NFL talent in large part. Plus Majors was good at hiring quality assistants. Fulmer didn't just inherit a ton of talent, from a team that had been to major bowls and won multiple SEC titles recently, he inherited a staff of good coaches.

At the end if their careers both Majors and Fulmer had a national title. Majors rebuilt 3 programs, won more games, got more jobs, and won more conference championships than Fulmer. He hired better assistants and has a much better coaching tree. By any metric Johnny Majors was a better coach than Fulmer.

Majors is the best judge of coaching talent I’ve ever seen. From hiring Gruden as a Grad asst to Seeing Cut at a coaching clinic in Birmingham and snatching him from the HS ranks. The list goes on.

 

[sonofUT62]

Fulmer was allowed to gracefully step down from the AD job instead of getting caught up in the Pruitt mess. He probably deserved that but you still have to wonder if he knew what was going on. I had heard from a couple of people that he brought in Tee to be his inside eyes and ears but doesn't appear that Tee informed him of what was going on so he may very well be innocent of the scandal. But...............................

So at the very worst he’s not crooked …..just incompetent?? And the guy he brought in to be his eyes and ears was a guy that we paid when he played here who went and ran his mouth about it? He knew what was going on.

 

[OrangeBeachVol]

So at the very worst he’s not crooked …..just incompetent?? And the guy he brought in to be his eyes and ears was a guy that we paid when he played here who went and ran his mouth about it? He knew what was going on.

Never said that, just said he was not included in the payout scandal by the university or the investigative team so we will never know if he was crooked. He definitely was incompetent as an AD.